Common Name

Dry-land Salwood

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Occurs in NE Qld primarily on the Einasleigh Uplands from the Mt Carbine–Mt Molloy region S to Hervey Ra., W of Townsville. Also occurs in coastal areas N of Cooktown in the Cape Melville–Bathurst Bay region including Stanley Is., with a southern outlier near Cranbourne Stn.

Description

Branchlets sometimes +/- pendulous, slender and brittle (snapping with a clean fracture). Phyllodes falcate to subfalcate, often long-tapered at apex, 8–14 cm long, 0.7–2 (–2.5) cm wide, green to pale grey-green or slightly subglaucous, commonly +/- milky green when dry, minor nerves (4–) 5–7 per mm. Spikes 2–4 per axil. Funicle/aril normally to encircling the seed (rarely 2–5-folded as in subsp. disparrima), white (tinged grey) to cream, ageing pale yellow.

Phenology

Flowers March–June.

Habitat

Usually found along seasonally dry creeks, diffuse drainage lines or run-on sites along roadsides in rocky, low, hilly or undulating terrain.

Specimens

Qld: Mt Mulligan, c. 2 km S of Mine Site along pipeline leading to falls on Richards Ck, J.R.Clarkson 5253 (BRI, CANB, DNA, K, MEL, NSW, PERTH, QRS); Hervey Ra., c. 50 km W of Townsville, M.W.McDonald & B.R.Maslin BRM 7627 (BRI, CANB, DNA, K, MEL, NSW, NY, PERTH).

Notes

On Stanley Is. near Bathurst Head, subsp. calidestris grows in heath on exposed sandstone headlands where its maximum height is 1.5 m tall. By contrast the tallest plants of the subspecies occur in the Forty Mile Scrub region, SW of Mount Garnet, where some plants may be up to 12 m tall with the trunks slightly fluted at their base.

FOA Reference

Data derived from Flora of Australia Volumes 11A (2001), 11B (2001) and 12 (1998), products of ABRS, ©Commonwealth of Australia

Author

B.R.Maslin